


Snow day

by dancinguniverse



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-24
Updated: 2016-04-24
Packaged: 2018-06-04 06:18:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6644749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinguniverse/pseuds/dancinguniverse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dick is standing at the window in his pajamas, all soft flannel and rumpled hair, peering at the street a story below.<br/>“What?” Nix mumbles.<br/>“It’s snowing,” Dick says, and pulls the curtains fully open.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snow day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kunstvogel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kunstvogel/gifts).



> [celestial-annihilation](http://archiveofourown.org/users/raistss/profile) asked for _comfort-food winnix in winter, their heater isn't working right so dick makes hot chocolate and they cuddle up in big sweaters and blankets and fall asleep like big kittens._
> 
> Close enough!

Nix stirs when Dick throws back the covers. Most days he rolls over, buries his head under the blankets, and squeezes another half hour of sleep out of the fading night. But normally Dick heads right into the bathroom and starts the shower running, and this morning there is silence. Normally the heavy duvet holds their shared heat a little better, but now Nix shivers. He raises his head, blinking in the soft morning light.

Dick is standing at the window in his pajamas, all soft flannel and rumpled hair, peering at the street a story below.

“What?” Nix mumbles.

“It’s snowing,” Dick says, and pulls the curtains fully open.

Nix blinks at the white blur of the outside world. There had been a few flakes last night, but now the cars are half-buried, the line between road and sidewalk erased, the houses’ straight edges and eaves softened. It’s still coming down hard, a white glitter that shifts and turns with the wind, static fuzzing over the whole view.

Nix slithers out of the covers — against his better judgment — and stands to join Dick at the window. The radio had predicted snow, but this is a full-on blizzard. He grimaces when his feet hit the ground. “It’s cold.”

Dick hums in agreement. “I’ll turn the heat up,” he says, though he makes no immediate move away from the window. Nix reaches back and hauls the whole duvet off the bed, drawing it around his shoulders like a grand cape before edging up to the window. Dick, still sleep-soft and tactile, greedy in a way he wouldn’t allow himself once the outside world and the workday fully intrude, nudges inside Nix’s cocoon. He tugs the blanket over his own shoulders, wrapping his arms around Nix from behind and hooking his chin over Nix’s shoulder. They survey the frozen street in silence. Nix, his head drifting down to rest against Dick’s cheek, thinks about stealing back to sleep.

“Roads’ll be a mess,” Dick muses.

Nix groans and jabs an elbow into his ribs, not deigning to open his eyes. “We’re not going anywhere. Turn up the heat and come back to bed. Nothing else to do today.”

Dick only shifts his embrace to trap Nix’s arm more firmly against his side, unperturbed. “I should shovel the walk.”

Nix thinks about arguing, but he’s out of bed already and Dick is not to be swayed. He argues anyway about the lack of pedestrians on a day like today through the bathroom door while the snow forms perilously high piles on the branches of the big pine in the front yard. He expounds on the uselessness of shoveling when the snow’s still coming down while Dick digs through the chest in search of warm clothes. He pointedly pulls on a robe and slippers while Dick steps into heavy work pants and layers a sweater over a flannel shirt before setting off down the stairs to dig out the boots he hasn’t needed yet this winter. They’ll be hiding in the back of some closet, standing properly to attention if it was Dick who put them away, or tossed on their sides if it was Nix. Nix can’t remember who stowed them, just that they’ve been there since Dick moved in. Their first winter had been a mild one, more rain than snow. Nix remembers the boots standing in a neat pair in the trunk of Dick’s car when he’d driven his things down from Lancaster. They’re rubberized against the wet and lined with something soft, bought for a college student to walk warm and dry to class. They’d stood in a hall closet in Pennsylvania while Dick trudged through Bastogne.

But it’s easy to shake off such thoughts when the snow lies quiet on the street, the trees stolidly bearing their loads, thick walls standing between Nix and the heavy drifts. But it really is cold in the house, enough to drive Nix down into the basement in his robe and poke and curse at the furnace while the unfinished concrete bleeds cold through his slippers and sets him to shivering. The pilot light is out, so he trudges back up the steps in search of a lighter, dropping it into his pocket and detouring to set up the coffeemaker. Back in the basement, his meager flame sputters and dies refuses to catch. The furnace stays stubbornly silent and cold.

He gives it up after ten minutes of prodding and appeals that evolve into verbal and physical abuse and then retreats up the stairs in defeat. A glance out the window shows Dick making a tunnel of the front walk, the show stacked into intimidating walls on either side, the sidewalk beginning to peak into sight. Once fortified with caffeine, Nix shuffles into the living room and lays a fire, shoving the coffee table out of the way and tugging the sofa close enough to catch sparks. Dick will have to bring more wood in from the pile alongside the garage later. Nix has already decided against clothes for the day.

By the time Dick abandons his shoveling efforts nearly an hour later, Nix has started a second pot of coffee and the fire is roaring.

“In here,” he calls when he hears the kitchen door swing open. Dick appears a moment later, still blowing on his hands, and he doesn’t hesitate to shove in beside Nix on the couch, wool-stockinged feet right up on the hearth and pulling the duvet Nix had retrieved from the bedroom into his lap. 

“I barely made a dent,” he comments, and Nix places his coffee mug, still warm and half-full, into Dick’s hands, wincing at his cold fingers as he folds them around the ceramic. “Every time I cleared a section, it just snowed another inch again.” His nose and ears are red with the cold, but his hairline is damp with sweat. There are stray pinches of snow clinging in the heavy knit of his sweater, and Nix bats them to the ground, wiping his wet fingers on the sofa before he settles back against Dick’s side.  

“Furnace is busted,” Nix informs him.

Dick clutches the coffee and takes a sip even though it’s Nix’s, pale with cream. “Should I take a look?”

“Be my guest,” Nix says. Experience tells him both that Dick’s tinkering is unlikely to produce miracles, and also that pointing this out in advance will only lengthen the amount of time he will spend freezing his ass off in the basement in the attempt. “I called for a repair. They’re not coming out today. I told them we had a clean walkway and everything,” now it is Dick’s turn to elbow him, though the thick folds of the duvet muffle it into more of a gentle nudge, “but they said tomorrow at the earliest.”

The fire snaps, and a log shifts and settles. Dick drains Nix’s coffee, then nestles the empty mug into his lap. “We’ll manage,” he says, surprising Nix a little in his complacency. 

“There’s another pot in the kitchen,” Nix tells him. In an attempt to at least target the aim of Dick’s next restless action, he adds, ”We’ll need some more wood soon.”

Dick nods and hides his hands under the blankets where Nix picks them up, rubbing warmth back into his cold fingers, nestling them into his own lap. “In a little bit,” Dick says. “Nowhere to go, right?”

Nix knocks his feet up against Dick’s on the hearth and tucks his head onto Dick’s shoulder, the thick wool scratching at his cheek. “Not a damn place,” he murmurs, and lets his eyes slide shut.


End file.
